4 ms·

It's amazing to me how much of a better product can be created when everything is in one place. It's obvious that when you're charging customers and paying inv

It's amazing to me how much of a better product can be created when everything is in one place. It's obvious that when you're charging customers and paying invoices through the same interface, that you'll have more visibility on your cash flow and it'll generally be easier to use, but this goes so much further. The reason those loans are easy is because Square know your history of charging customers. The reason they can pay "instantly" into your account is because they don't have to actually move any money until you pay out of your account, the reason they can charge no account fees is because they're charging at the point of taking payments from customers. The economics of the whole offering are far different to what the regular combo of payment service provider + bank + loan company can provide. Great move. Square has always been the sort of product that makes me wish I was in a business where I could use it.

arkitaip 5y ago
Maybe we can also start moving away from feature-limited Saas offerings that are so damn proud that they focus on One Thing And One Thing Only when customers want just one affordable app to handle all their work and not fifty-eleven ones that become crazy expensive.
- dangerlibrary 5y ago
  You seem to be operating under the assumption that an integrated product will necessarily be cheaper, as opposed to simply more convenient. That's definitely not a necessary result of a combined product offering, but it's interesting to think about.
  - arkitaip 5y ago
    It's often much cheaper. Take a look at What Microsoft offers with their Office 365 subscription plans or Zoho One.
    - dangerlibrary 5y ago
      This topic is pretty well studied and discussed elsewhere, often in the context of antitrust. The Google-able phrase would probably be "bundling vs unbundling" or similar. It's not _always_ the case that a bundled product is cheaper, though, as you point out, often it is. There are many lawyers representing companies accused of monopolistic behavior who would be on your side of this discussion.
- csa 5y ago
  > feature-limited Saas offerings that are so damn proud that they focus on One Thing And One Thing Only when customers want just one affordable app to handle all their work As a general rule, these two would be very different target markets.
- jgalt212 5y ago
  oh, so like Apple, but for the B2B space?
- neeleshs 5y ago
  This. And interoperability, stepping over each other, different teams owning different solutions, conflicts and overlaps etc. Precise why my company built a one-stop-shop SaaS for our domain (revenue operations). We need more of these, thinking from a user's point of view.
- Kluny 5y ago
  > One Thing And One Thing Only I mean, that's just fashion that evolved in response to the previous fashion, which was bloated software that did a million things badly. Fair enough that the pendulum should swing back the other way, but there certainly is a place for software that only does one thing and does it well.
  - dkislyuk 5y ago
    The history of tech companies can be viewed as a constant bundling and unbundling of products, depending on where the inefficiency is.
    - htrp 5y ago
      The history of all companies can be viewed as a constant bundling and unbundling.... once upon a time there were these things called conglomerates.
- user3939382 5y ago
  That’s the idea with ERP but in practice the deal is: it does all things for all people, still has holes for edge cases, almost always a horrible UI, and the TCO is way over what’s promised after you pay for implementation and support.
- tyre 5y ago
  Customers want those things but the companies you are referring to haven’t been around long enough to build all of them. Believe me, it’s on their slide decks. In 2013 I joined a company named ZenPayroll, which focused entirely on…well, payroll. That company is now called Gusto and does payroll, health insurance, workers comp, HR, etc. That didn’t come out of no where, but you have to start someplace.
- cercatrova 5y ago
  The history of products has always been bundling and unbundling [0]. There have been products that bundled everything but some customers decided they didn't like the bundle, so they went with a la carte options. Now we're seeing these a la carte companies bundle again to achieve more scale. And then the unbundling will happen again in due time. It's all cyclical. [0] https://stratechery.com/concept/business-models/bundling-and-unbundling/ https://stratechery.com/concept/business-models/bundling-and...
fumblebee 5y ago
This is where fintech has been headed for some time -- a bundle of complimentary products all in a single app (payment provider + bank + loan company + crypto + etc.). Square are demonstrating this here for business, some Chinese finance apps went down this road years ago, Revolut are billing themselves as a "financial super app". There's tremendous advantage in having everything in one place. Each individual product can be 70% as good as best in market, but the value-add by having everything bundled in one place is huge.
- meltedcapacitor 5y ago
  Sounds like the 1990s App Edition. (Remember bancassurance, universal banking, etc.)
- htrp 5y ago
  Taken to its logical conclusion (or back to the dinosaur monolithic systems from pre-history), each individual product can be shit as long as one product is a must have.....
  - ishjoh 5y ago
    without wanting to start a flame war this is how I've often felt about the MS Office suite. Each product on it's own is Ok, but there was always at least one that I've needed and always ended up with the entire suite in the end.
- dempsey 5y ago
  The lending piece is very similar to what Shopify has been doing in ecommerce.
purple_ferret 5y ago
As a small business owner do you really want your banking to be tied to your POS system though? Why not offer Square 'housing' too. Sell with Square and live in a Square condo[0] [0] So long as you never ever leave Square for another system.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Generally speaking banks leave a lot to be desired in the US, which is Square's banking charter. They can make a better bank, and they can provide complementary financial services in one place. For what it's worth extant banking competitors offer substantially all the major services that Square does. JPM is a bank, a broker, a merchant acquirer (Chase Paymentech), they're a credit card issuer, a debit card issuer, an unsecured lender, as secured lender (mortgage broker). Heck, Chase even operates a private instance of VisaNet. What Square's doing isn't any different really, it's just flashier and better executed. And also, whatever this embarrassing crypto thing is: [1] [1] https://twitter.com/tbd54566975 https://twitter.com/tbd54566975
PeterisP 5y ago
I'm a bit confused about "the regular combo of payment service provider + bank + loan company" - from what I see (perhaps it's a difference between markets?), all that you describe is exactly what most commercial banks offer to businesses, they want to have it all in one place, they can make a better loan offer if they have your cash flows, etc. The main difference between them and Stripe is that a bunch of banks will not do the IT integration part of card payment processing but will only be the 'merchant bank' handling the financial part and settlement after e.g. some merchant gateway routes the individual messages, but they were offering the combo of card acceptance/accounts/payroll/loans/credit lines/etc decades before Stripe existed.
notenoughhorses 5y ago
Maybe. Every time Intuit integrates another app into their main QBO product, it makes things worse. To some extent, when they are separate apps that connect to QBO, I get more control over what data transfers. When it’s integrated, they tend to make automatic adjustments with no ability to edit them. Obviously this is a choice they are making to do things a bad way, but my point is just to share a counter example of integration being a net negative.
- danpalmer 5y ago
  My point was not about the integration in terms of the products, but the integration in terms of the business models and pricing. It doesn't look like Intuit is doing anything smart there?

arkitaip 5y ago

Maybe we can also start moving away from feature-limited Saas offerings that are so damn proud that they focus on One Thing And One Thing Only when customers want just one affordable app to handle all their work and not fifty-eleven ones that become crazy expensive.

dangerlibrary 5y ago
You seem to be operating under the assumption that an integrated product will necessarily be cheaper, as opposed to simply more convenient. That's definitely not a necessary result of a combined product offering, but it's interesting to think about.
- arkitaip 5y ago
  It's often much cheaper. Take a look at What Microsoft offers with their Office 365 subscription plans or Zoho One.
  - dangerlibrary 5y ago
    This topic is pretty well studied and discussed elsewhere, often in the context of antitrust. The Google-able phrase would probably be "bundling vs unbundling" or similar. It's not _always_ the case that a bundled product is cheaper, though, as you point out, often it is. There are many lawyers representing companies accused of monopolistic behavior who would be on your side of this discussion.
csa 5y ago
> feature-limited Saas offerings that are so damn proud that they focus on One Thing And One Thing Only when customers want just one affordable app to handle all their work As a general rule, these two would be very different target markets.
jgalt212 5y ago
oh, so like Apple, but for the B2B space?
neeleshs 5y ago
This. And interoperability, stepping over each other, different teams owning different solutions, conflicts and overlaps etc. Precise why my company built a one-stop-shop SaaS for our domain (revenue operations). We need more of these, thinking from a user's point of view.
Kluny 5y ago
> One Thing And One Thing Only I mean, that's just fashion that evolved in response to the previous fashion, which was bloated software that did a million things badly. Fair enough that the pendulum should swing back the other way, but there certainly is a place for software that only does one thing and does it well.
- dkislyuk 5y ago
  The history of tech companies can be viewed as a constant bundling and unbundling of products, depending on where the inefficiency is.
  - htrp 5y ago
    The history of all companies can be viewed as a constant bundling and unbundling.... once upon a time there were these things called conglomerates.
user3939382 5y ago
That’s the idea with ERP but in practice the deal is: it does all things for all people, still has holes for edge cases, almost always a horrible UI, and the TCO is way over what’s promised after you pay for implementation and support.
tyre 5y ago
Customers want those things but the companies you are referring to haven’t been around long enough to build all of them. Believe me, it’s on their slide decks. In 2013 I joined a company named ZenPayroll, which focused entirely on…well, payroll. That company is now called Gusto and does payroll, health insurance, workers comp, HR, etc. That didn’t come out of no where, but you have to start someplace.
cercatrova 5y ago
The history of products has always been bundling and unbundling [0]. There have been products that bundled everything but some customers decided they didn't like the bundle, so they went with a la carte options. Now we're seeing these a la carte companies bundle again to achieve more scale. And then the unbundling will happen again in due time. It's all cyclical. [0] https://stratechery.com/concept/business-models/bundling-and-unbundling/ https://stratechery.com/concept/business-models/bundling-and...

fumblebee 5y ago

This is where fintech has been headed for some time -- a bundle of complimentary products all in a single app (payment provider + bank + loan company + crypto + etc.). Square are demonstrating this here for business, some Chinese finance apps went down this road years ago, Revolut are billing themselves as a "financial super app". There's tremendous advantage in having everything in one place. Each individual product can be 70% as good as best in market, but the value-add by having everything bundled in one place is huge.

meltedcapacitor 5y ago
Sounds like the 1990s App Edition. (Remember bancassurance, universal banking, etc.)
htrp 5y ago
Taken to its logical conclusion (or back to the dinosaur monolithic systems from pre-history), each individual product can be shit as long as one product is a must have.....
- ishjoh 5y ago
  without wanting to start a flame war this is how I've often felt about the MS Office suite. Each product on it's own is Ok, but there was always at least one that I've needed and always ended up with the entire suite in the end.
dempsey 5y ago
The lending piece is very similar to what Shopify has been doing in ecommerce.

purple_ferret 5y ago

As a small business owner do you really want your banking to be tied to your POS system though? Why not offer Square 'housing' too. Sell with Square and live in a Square condo[0] [0] So long as you never ever leave Square for another system.

arcticbull 5y ago
Generally speaking banks leave a lot to be desired in the US, which is Square's banking charter. They can make a better bank, and they can provide complementary financial services in one place. For what it's worth extant banking competitors offer substantially all the major services that Square does. JPM is a bank, a broker, a merchant acquirer (Chase Paymentech), they're a credit card issuer, a debit card issuer, an unsecured lender, as secured lender (mortgage broker). Heck, Chase even operates a private instance of VisaNet. What Square's doing isn't any different really, it's just flashier and better executed. And also, whatever this embarrassing crypto thing is: [1] [1] https://twitter.com/tbd54566975 https://twitter.com/tbd54566975

PeterisP 5y ago

I'm a bit confused about "the regular combo of payment service provider + bank + loan company" - from what I see (perhaps it's a difference between markets?), all that you describe is exactly what most commercial banks offer to businesses, they want to have it all in one place, they can make a better loan offer if they have your cash flows, etc. The main difference between them and Stripe is that a bunch of banks will not do the IT integration part of card payment processing but will only be the 'merchant bank' handling the financial part and settlement after e.g. some merchant gateway routes the individual messages, but they were offering the combo of card acceptance/accounts/payroll/loans/credit lines/etc decades before Stripe existed.

notenoughhorses 5y ago

Maybe. Every time Intuit integrates another app into their main QBO product, it makes things worse. To some extent, when they are separate apps that connect to QBO, I get more control over what data transfers. When it’s integrated, they tend to make automatic adjustments with no ability to edit them. Obviously this is a choice they are making to do things a bad way, but my point is just to share a counter example of integration being a net negative.

danpalmer 5y ago
My point was not about the integration in terms of the products, but the integration in terms of the business models and pricing. It doesn't look like Intuit is doing anything smart there?